


And Prancer, and Vixen

by HenryMercury



Series: Henry's Cursed Killing Eve Week 2021 Collection [3]
Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Alcohol, Christmas, Cursed Content Rating: Medium, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/F, Family, Hangover, Morning After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 01:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30098259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/???, Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Series: Henry's Cursed Killing Eve Week 2021 Collection [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2211225
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57
Collections: Killing Eve Week 2021





	And Prancer, and Vixen

**Author's Note:**

> Some slightly less cursed content for you on this already cursed day. RIP KE x
> 
> Day 3 = Morning after

This moment is the close-up on Eve’s face when she realises the magnitude of the hangover she’s waking up to. Reddened eyes opening suddenly into the mortifying ordeal of consciousness. Immediate nausea. God, everything _stinks_ like vodka and she’s going to hurl if she doesn’t get some coffee under her nostrils instead—but coffee is in the kitchen, and the kitchen is downstairs, and downstairs is far, far away.

 _Groan_.

What the hell happened last night, anyway?

The timeline is splotchy, but fortunately the more she tries to focus on it the more information is yields.

It was Christmas dinner. Even if she’d forgotten that bit she’d know it just from the rancid splotch of spiced-rum egg nogg on the front of her shirt. Eve does not drink egg nogg. _Konstantin_ drinks egg nogg.

She’s taken her time with it, certainly, but Eve’s worked out that family is important to Oksana—even if she chooses to show it in a weird, love-to-hate, I-will-kill-you kind of way. When she’d mentioned nonchalantly that they’d be in town over the holidays, Eve had known what she had to do.

She’d done it, because she’s trying to be a decent partner this time around, but there had still been ample dragging of feet. She’d called Carolyn, formerly her boss and now the wife of Oksana’s adoptive uncle. She’d invited them over.

When Oksana had added that her ‘worst aunt ever’ would be passing through on her way from Barcelona back to Russia, Eve figured why not.

“You should invite some of your family, too,” Oksana had said, snuggling into her side on the couch in front of an _Antiques Roadshow_ rerun, which Eve was ignoring in favour of browsing web sleuth forums on her laptop.

Eve wanted to scoff—to ask her, _Who is that supposed to mean_ —but when she tilted her head back she saw the earnest look in Oksana’s eyes. A look that said, _Please let me return this gesture._

Niko and Gemma had looked out of place at the table, mostly because they _were_ out of place. Also, what kind of insane person gets invited to their ex-wife’s Christmas gathering and _actually goes?_ Eve suspects this is Gemma’s doing, not his. The workplace lovebirds are engaged and expecting a baby together in a handful of months, but Gemma’s never quite stopped with the tip-toeing around Eve. She can imagine the discussion:

_—Niko, she invited us! Such a nice gesture, we can’t just refuse!_

— _Actually we really can._

_—No, she’ll think I hate her! This is an olive branch, don’t you see? And I want our baby to have as much of an extended family as p-possible [sniffling]_

_—We’ll go, alright? If that’s really what you want to do. Just please, stop crying. I’ll get you a hanky._

“This is really divine, you two,” Gemma had exclaimed, stabbing another piece of roast chicken breast. “Could I possibly bribe you for the recipe?”

“Thank you, Gemma,” Oksana basked in the praise.

Eve said: “I bought it from Waitrose.”

“Oh. In that case, um, top choice.”

Eve will laugh at the memory of _that_ sometime when it doesn’t split her skull to do so. The body next to her in bed stirs, then settles.

She scrubs her hands over her eyes, pressing into the sockets and temples in desperate bids to soothe the pain. When she pulls them away, she notes with absolute alarm that there’s something dark dried around her nails. If she didn’t know better, she’d think it was blood.

No, wait, who the fuck is Eve kidding? She doesn’t know better at all. She wouldn’t put a Christmas bloodbath past this family for a single minute.

This memory takes longer to resurface; it’s from later in the evening, obviously, after a lot more wine and vodka and whatever else they’d tipped down their throats. (Gemma had had hot water in a mug. Not even a herbal tea. Not so much as a cardamom pod or a lemon wedge. Just the water.)

Poor thing, Gemma had found herself the audience for one of worst-aunt-Dasha’s Tales from Soviet Russia’s Gymnastic Glory Days. These were very animated and quite violent; every time she moved, Gemma flinched away, arms folded nervously across her belly. Eve’s not sure how exactly it happened, but she knows Niko stepped in to interrupt as Dasha took a forkful of Christmas cake and seemingly caught her by surprise, and—

Oh, Jesus Christ.

The fork, tines buried deeply enough into Niko’s upper arm that the whole implement stuck there at an angle even after Dasha let go. The blood, the yelling, the absolute chaos. The marvelling glint in Oksana’s eyes as she took in the scene, stifling laughter… they’d fought about that, hadn’t they? Eve had glared, pointed accusingly, whispered to Oksana that even if they were both turned on by a bit of light stabbing from time to time it was a totally inappropriate moment to be laughing, and to go and sleep in the spare bedroom, which—

“Hey,” mumbles Eve, throwing an arm out across the sleeping figure who must have returned to bed while Eve slept. Eve may not be as pissed as she was last night (not in either of the ways) but they’re still going to have another talk about boundaries. Giving each other space and _respecting_ that space is the only way of cooling their respective tempers to non-lethal temperatures.

 _Groan_.

Not Eve’s. Not Oksana’s either.

Eve is wide awake, all of a sudden. She sits up in a rush, which is awful. She looks at the person beside her and that’s even more awful. A Christmas carol springs, unwelcome, into her mind—the scrambled names of nonexistent reindeer, _Dancer and Slasher and Cancer and Nixon, Blitzkrieg and Dasha—_

The bile rises with real purpose this time, and Eve can only lean over the edge of the bed in an effort to minimise the damage. Most of it, she’ll later be proud to note, lands in the waste bin her drunken self seems to have had the foresight to move in front of the nightstand.

In the brief reprieve that vomiting provides, Eve trudges downstairs.

Oksana is already there, atop one of the breakfast bar’s three high stools.

“Morning,” she says, loudly and brightly like the hangover-immune little asshole she is. “I made you a coffee.” Love of Eve’s life.

Eve reaches out, but Oksana shifts the mug away at the last moment. Dick. Eve could wring her pretty neck.

“I thought Dasha was going to stay over.” Oksana says the words casually, but her stare is absolutely fucking intent. “But when I got up for my run this morning the sofa-bed had not been slept on.”

Eve puts her head in her hands. Wracks her brain for some illuminating morsel of an alibi but finds her memory more and more holey the harder she tries.

“Maybe she went home?” Oksana continues lightly.

Thoughtfully.

Utterly fucking manipulatively. She’s testing Eve. She’s at least got the good grace to be unsubtle about it on this sledgehammer of a morning.

“She didn’t go home.”

Oksana offers her the coffee again, this time allowing her to take it. A reward. If this is psychological conditioning tastes like, Eve’ll take it.

“No, she didn’t,” Oksana agrees. “How much do you remember about last night?”

There is no way to win at this game. Say she remembers and she’ll be expected to tell a story she simply doesn’t know; say she’s forgotten and Oksana can control the narrative. All Eve can do is express her _hopes_ which are, emphatically:

“I didn’t… I didn’t have _sex_ with her, right?”

Oksana cracks up. Cackles, really. It’s obnoxiously loud.

“Of course not,” she teases, then falters: “Wait—that is a question you really have to ask?”

Even with the comfort of caffeine, Eve remains a bear with a sore head. As such, the flicker of horrified doubt that Oksana’s trying hard to school out of her expression is too sweet to resist. Yes, Eve is trying to be a good partner this time around. But she’s hardly going to turn down the upper hand when it’s presented to her.

So she shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe?”

Oksana’s frown grows deeper the more she tries to hide it.

“There’s… something about her. Something magnetic. Kind of reminds me of you. And the way she stabbed Niko with that fork? You know what that sort of thing does to me, baby.”

“Take it back,” Oksana cries, sliding off her stool and coming to loom over Eve.

Eve smiles up at her. “No. I think this has awoken something in me, and I’m not sure I can put it back in its box again—”

The hot splash of spilling coffee is a shock, although it shouldn’t be. Oksana’s sudden appearance in Eve’s lap is a surprise, mostly because the logistics of two people on one bar stool are precarious at best.

Oksana’s mouth on Eve’s is welcome, if fleeting.

“You’re going to land us both on the floor,” she says when her mouth frees up again.

“You taste _so_ bad,” Oksana complains, making a face as she clambers off Eve again. “Like coffee and Russian Standard and vomit. Yeugch.”

“That would be accurate. You don’t detect any notes of Dasha underneath those tempting flavours?”

Eve grins as Oksana pretends to retch—

—and then she’s running for the sink, because Oksana is a pretty good actress, and Eve’s fragile stomach is in a state of heightened sympathy this morning.

“Mistakes were made,” she acknowledges.

“Mistakes like inviting my worst aunt and your ex-husband to our Christmas party?”

“I was just trying to—I thought you’d like it, seeing your family.”

Oksana softens, stops smirking and comes up behind Eve at the sink, combing her hair back between her fingers as Eve cups water in her hands to rinse her mouth out.

“I see. That was nice of you, Eve,” she murmurs. “But I think perhaps you should not be so nice again.”

“That, I can do.”


End file.
